Prep Volleyball: Le-Win, Dakota to battle for title

Wednesday

Oct 30, 2013 at 12:19 AMOct 30, 2013 at 12:19 AM

By Adam J. KradleFor The Journal-Standard

DAKOTA — Lena-Winslow looked to be on its way to a two-set win Tuesday in the semifinals of the Class 2A Dakota volleyball regional, but Pecatonica refused to go down without a fight. The No. 3-seeded Indians rallied to force a third set before the (No. 2) Panthers finally put the match away in three, winning 25-19, 22-25, 25-15 to advance to Thursday's title match against top-seeded Dakota.

"It happens at regional time," Le-Win coach Sue Amendt said. "Whoever is down just has that little burst, the energy before you die kind of thing, and they weren't letting balls drop and they were being scrappy all over the floor, and we were just coasting."

The Panthers (27-9) led 20-15 in the second set, but Pecatonica used its last burst to close the set on a 10-3 run and force the match to a decisive third.

"They kind of dug in a little bit and actually started hitting the floor and moving a little bit better on defense and communicating a little bit better," Pec coach Jessica Berg said.

While Amendt was disappointed her team wasn't able to finish off the Indians in two, she was pleased to see the Panthers regroup in the third. After falling behind 8-4, Le-Win took control again, and this time for good with a 9-0 run, and the Indians wouldn't get closer than three points the rest of the way. Le-Win closed the match by outscoring Pec 10-2.

"We did come back in the third and not lose our composure and kept our act together, so that was nice to see," Amendt said. I think our block kind of came alive in the end and did a nice job."

Jo Beukema led the Panthers blocking as she stuffed a match-high of four. Heather Gahm added three blocks to go along with her six kills. Credence Stouffer led Le-Win with 10 kills, and Cortney Haight had seven for the Panthers, who will face their biggest challenge yet in the regional final against unbeaten Dakota.

"I think at this point we just hope that our kids go out and play as hard as they can and try to play aggressively as they can without having the unforced errors and put their best match on the court," Amendt said. "When they do that, you can't ask anything else of them."

Dakota 25-25, West Carroll 17-15

On what was an off night, Dakota still managed to advance past the Thunder without much trouble. The Indians (36-0) allowed West Carroll to hang around in both sets longer than anticipated mostly because of their own struggles.

"Sometimes we need to play up to our level and we need to focus on what we're doing," Dakota coach Shannon Williams said. "We've had some issues with hitting errors in the last couple of weeks so we've just talked about keeping the ball in play. We still want them to be aggressive but handle the ball, and I think now maybe they're almost too afraid to do that so they're kind of in between."

Dakota committed 20 unforced errors in the match, 17 of which came on the attack.

"I think it was focus," Dakota junior setter Jaycee Cleaver said. "I think we were focused on trying to not make errors, so we made more errors than we should have."

Despite the errors, the Indians still managed to take control with an 11-1 run in the first set and an 8-0 run in the second. Sarah Thompson had a match-high 11 kills. Cleaver gave Dakota an added boost on offense with her seven kills, three of which came on dumps to the open spots on the Thunder side of the court, which Williams noticed early in the match.

"We were struggling right away and I called out for it, telling Jaycee, 'it's open, push it middle or dump it middle,' so she did it and that opens up a lot for our hitters too," Williams said. "We want to see her hitting so we're trying to get her involved a little bit more offensively as well."

Although it may have been an ugly win, the Indians were glad to get the first postseason victory under their belt and advance to Thursday's title match on their home court.

"It's good to get this one out of the way," Dakota junior Eden Meier said.